


B-Sides

by Ataraxetta



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Minor Angst, Violence, tumblr ficlets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-03-19 04:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3596301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ataraxetta/pseuds/Ataraxetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assorted Eggsy/Harry ficlets originally on tumblr:</p><p>1. Truth Serum<br/>2. How Harry Met Eggsy<br/>3. Don't Look Away</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a tiny posting here! Someone very kind asked me to post these to AO3 so they could bookmark them.

**i.**

When there were eight of them left, after a day spent in intense physical training and a night in which they weren’t allowed to go to sleep, Merlin walked into the ward with a tray of syringes and a kindly, encouraging smile that meant his recruits were in for something painful, humiliating, or spiritually crushing. Usually all three. Eggsy exchanged a wary look with Roxy as they stood at attention.

"Good morning, recruits. I trust you’re all doing well," Merlin said. There were a few lackluster muttered agreements and his amiable grin widened. "Glad to hear it. This," he held up the tray, "is a dose of the most potent truth serum in the world. Do I have your attention? Excellent. If you would pair up, please, and follow me.”

They took a lift down to lower levels as Merlin explained the drill. “As this sort of technology becomes more advanced and cheaper to produce it is critical that every Knight of Kingsman learn to withstand it. However, before you’re able to do that, you need to know how it feels.”

Out of the lift was a flight of stairs that led even further into the bowels of the building, where polished wood gave way to aged brick walls and cement floors that had a chemical smell like they’d been cleaned too many times. Three handlers from Merlin’s Crystal Cave unit were waiting for them and each took two syringes from Merlin. He took up the other two, tucked the tray under his arm and turned to face the recruits. “You will note that I’ve graciously allowed you to choose your own partners for this exercise. You can be sure that I will not be so kind in future, so pay careful attention to the effect of the serum, lest your next experience involve baring the skeletons in your closet to the organization at large.

"This time, the only witnesses will be yourself, your partner and your handler. Rufus and Charlie, please follow Miss Mansato. Digby and Nathanial, you’ll be with Mr. Cooper, Piers and Hugo with Miss Printess and Roxy and Eggsy with me."

Merlin led him and Roxy into an interrogation room and had them sit down across from each other at the table and went about preparing the injections. Eggsy got his first and made a show of holding his arm out gamely. He reckoned that with this pack of pedigreed wankers this whole thing was a pretty good scare tactic. Roxy wasn’t a wanker, but she still eyed the syringe with clear apprehension when it was her turn.

"Don’t worry," Eggsy told her. "There’s no such thing as a fuckin’ truth serum."

Roxy raised an eyebrow. “Eggsy, there is absolutely such a thing as truth serum.”

"Nah," said Eggsy. Not that he didn’t appreciate her concern, or whatever, but he had this. "It’s probably like, saline or some shit. All we’re doin’ is fighting the placebo effect."

Her eyes darted to Merlin incredulously and Eggsy could only see the side of his face but he didn’t need to see Merlin’s expression to know he was right. This was real life, not some cheesy spy flick. They’d tried to use this sort of manipulation in basic training for the Marines all the bloody time. He wasn’t fussed at all. He tossed Roxy a wink. “Trust me.”

An hour later, he was facedown on the floor with Roxy on top of him, an iron grip on the arm she’d wrenched behind his back and a knee digging painfully into his spine as she shoved his face into the cement.

"Admit you were wrong," she demanded. Eggsy, who had broken into sort of raw hysterical giggling, did no such fucking thing, and Roxy shoved him harder. "Admit you were wrong and apologize for ever being so bloody thick or I swear to God I will personally hunt down every single chavvy snapback in the world and burn them to fucking ash."

"They’re not snapbacks!" Eggsy argued. "They’re fitted!"

"To _ash_ , Eggsy!” Roxy threatened, shaking him.

An hour after that, they lay sprawled out a few feet away from each other, watching the room spin in slow circles around them with glazed eyes and no secrets between them. They were now irrevocably best mates, and as such Eggsy wouldn’t feel bad about giving her shit for the rest of their lives.

"Hey, Rox?" he slurred. His voice was hoarse. Her’s was too. There’d been a lot of shouting.

"Mm?"

"I promise I won’t tell anyone you stole that Mars bar when you was a kid. ‘Cept Merlin. He heard. Hopefully he won’t report you to the police. I hear they’ll lock you up for years, that sorta thing."

"Fuck you," said Roxy. "Keep up the cheek and I _will_ tell everyone that you want to ride Galahad like a cowboy.”

“Like a cowboy,” Eggsy agreed, smirking at the ceiling. He was so far past being embarrassed that he just felt vaguely aroused by the thought. “Ride him into the fuckin’ sunset. Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”

“That’s Neverland.”

“Whatever.” Eggsy yawned and closed his eyes. After a bit, he said, “But you won’t really tell no one though, right?”

“Except Merlin,” Roxy said. Eggsy held up a fist and she lethargically bumped it with her own.

In the observation room, Harry wasn’t paying Merlin much attention, enthralled as he was by the view of Eggsy’s dimpled smile through the one-way mirror, but Merlin eyed him over the edge of his teacup anyway. “Considering a trip to Neverland are we, Galahad?”

Harry, very politely, flipped him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: ataraxetta


	2. Chapter 2

Harry is very busy, and also important. He’s so busy and important that he’s entered a trance-like state of hyper focus. Naturally, so much focus had led to him having forgot whatever one of the thousand and ten things he’s meant to be doing and he’s been staring unseeing out the window of the plane for twenty minutes. He startles so profoundly when Merlin clears his throat that he upsets his drink.

"Damn it."

"What?" says Merlin in his ear. The new ear buds - not buds at all, but nearly-invisibly patches pressed just inside the ear - provide phenomenal sound quality; the accusatory inflection in Merlin’s voice is crystal clear. "What happened? Did you spill something on your laptop again?"

"No," Harry lies, sopping wine up from the keyboard with a cloth napkin.

"You’re still wearing your camera," Merlin points out.

"Balls," says Harry.

"That’s three just this year." Harry can’t see him, but he’s known Merlin for nearly thirty years, since they were fresh-faced recruits. He can imagine the look on his face. "A man of your skill, honestly."

"It’s fine," Harry says. He taps open the video conference window that Merlin’s sent him. Merlin has the exact expression on his face that Harry was picturing. Harry’s been immune to it for decades. "See? Perfect working order."

Merlin mutters darkly, but his attention is mostly taken up by one of his monitors out of Harry’s view, and he doesn’t harp on about it anymore. “We received a call a few minutes ago, code phrase ‘Oxfords, not brogues.’”

Harry feels his eyes widen. He ceases clean up efforts to listen intently. “Lee Unwin’s widow?”

"Son."

That’s even more surprising. He remembers a little boy, four or five and stubbornly refusing to let tears fall, telling Harry his name and taking his father’s medal with delicate care. “I met him. Just a little boy.”

"Well, little boys do tend to grow up, Galahad. It’s been seventeen years."

Of course it has. It’s been exactly James’s tenure as Lancelot, and James was killed only weeks ago. “Suspicious timing, isn’t it?”

"We’ll call it fate," says Merlin. He sounds rather smug, which isn’t unusual, but it’s a strange conversation to be smug about. "He’s twenty-two now. I’m sending you his file."

"Hm," Harry says. "And he’s in trouble?"

One corner of Merlin’s mouth quirks upward. It’s a smile usually reserved for recruits who have impressed him, or for targets who have done the same. Which category Lee’s son falls into is clearly still up for debate. “Something like that. Making it, anyway. He’s been arrested. Not for the first time, but he’s not likely to escape prison with these charges.”

Harry opens the file. The first screen is a headshot from the Marines. Gary “Eggsy” Unwin, twenty-two, is lovely. “What are the charges?” Harry asks Merlin.

"Grand theft auto, reckless endangerment, speeding, driving under the influence, and damage to police property to name a few. He apparently led the local authorities on a high speed chase in a stolen vehicle with some…colourful maneuvering."

Merlin, Harry knows, is as much of a snob as the rest of them, and being one of the rather more skilled agents has standards near the heights of Harry’s. ‘Colourful’ is quite a compliment. Harry’s terribly intrigued. “Is there video?”

"Uploading the CCTV feed right now," Merlin says.

They watch in silence until the video ends, frozen on the final still of Eggsy's defiantly pleased face partially obscured by the steering wheel as he plows into the front of a police car. Harry is equal parts appalled and aroused. He hasn’t seen driving like that in, well, since he saw recordings of Arthur as a young agent. "That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life."

Merlin hums with palpable nonchalance, but Harry’s quite sure he's just as turned on as Harry is.

"And apparently self-taught, from what I can tell," says Merlin. "He’s looking at three to five years. The police have offered a less severe sentence if he gives up his friends’ names. He’s refused."

Harry shudders to think what three to five years in prison with a face like Eggsy Unwin’s would be like, and scrolls through the file he’s been provided. Eggsy didn’t get his father’s height - Lee had been well over six foot and Eggsy’s stats show him at five foot eight - nor his looks (green eyes rather than brown, light where Lee was darker, stronger jaw and prettier face and lean where Lee was stocky), but he appears to have inherited all of his talent and then some. IQ of 161, top marks at school, top of his class in performance in the Marines before he quit, an exceptionally skilled gymnast in his teen years following his tenure as an exceptionally skilled ballet dancer as a child, both of which he also quit.

His medical history paints a clearer picture, with years of sporadic injuries consistent with abuse and alongside a criminal history just as bleak. Eggsy has been charged for shoplifting, possession, and solicitation, several times as a minor and now running out of second chances as an adult. It’s disheartening, to say the least. Harry’s been nursing a quiet guilt for Lee’s death since it happened, but evidence of the damage left behind makes it burn bright enough to hollow out his chest a bit.

That, of course, is no help to anyone, and he packs the guilt neatly away with the rest of his mistakes. Whatever trials Eggsy has faced, he has grown into a young man of incredible potential. “He’s being detained?”

"He’s been there most of the night and hasn’t said more than a handful of words. Apparently he’s stubborn. We’ve made a call and I’ve scheduled a car to see that he’s taken home once he’s released."

"Cancel it. I’m due to land in twenty minutes. I’ll take mine," says Harry.

Merlin offers a dry, “I thought you might," and Harry ends the call, quite certain that he’s just found their new Lancelot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this whole headcanon with ballet-trained Eggsy that I will never let go, not ever.


	3. Chapter 3

“Look at me,” Harry says.

Eggsy has no choice but to listen, hasn’t had a fucking choice since Harry swanned into his life and told him he could be worth something. Harry’s eyes are bloodshot, one of them blackened, dirty hair falling into the other. The look in them is angry. Scary. Kind of awful and sexy as shit. Eggsy don’t speak whatever dialect it is the couple of thugs around them are nattering on in, but he can tell it’s pissing Harry right off. Eggsy says, “Arthur” the same way he normally says _Harry_ , and Harry bares his teeth in a clear threat. 

“Galahad,” he snarls. “Look. At. Me.”

“I am,” Eggsy argues. The gun barrel at his temple nudges meanly but he doesn’t let his gaze skitter. He can’t see Harry’s hands tied behind the back of the chair but he’s sure they’re clenching into fists. “I want—”

“Shut up,” Harry says.

“Fuck you,” Eggsy hisses.

There’s no way out of this, is the thing. Harry’s tied to a chair with a few broken ribs and Eggsy’s on the ground with a bullet headed for his brainpan. They’ve lost connection with Merlin and there’s no extraction team in place and even if there was, it wouldn’t matter, ‘cos the op is more important than Eggsy’s life. It’s Arthur they need. Galahad is expendable. For once, Eggsy’s at peace with that. Not that he’s saying it lightly, or anything. He quite likes his life. It’s pretty fucking fantastic, to be honest. The last thing he wants to do is croak right here in B.F.E., but it’s the end of the line. Last resort. Harry being a bloody arsehole about it don’t change fact.

The big bloke behind him is the ring leader and a big dramaqueen. He’s started a countdown. In English, so Eggsy can understand. Harry’s furious. Eggsy wants to lick past his bloody lips and into his mouth. Adrenaline tastes like metal on his tongue. Harry doesn’t take his eyes off Eggsy. “Don’t look away,” he says.

“Tell me you love me,” Eggsy shoots back.

Harry gnashes his teeth. Angrily, he says, “I love you.”

Eggsy smirks. “I knew it.”

“Seven,” Keyser Söze over here says, shoving the gun against Eggsy’s head like he’s got to get any closer to blow Eggsy’s brains out the other side. “Six. Five.”

To Harry, Eggsy says, “I love you, too.”

One corner of Harry’s mouth quirks upward. He softens, just a little. It’s all Eggsy wanted. Harry says, “I know.”

The gunshot sounds like a goddamn nightmare. All the things Eggsy hasn’t done in his lifetime flash before his eyes. It lasts for a while, longer than it probably should. Another deafening shot, a warm spray on the side of his face, and an ugly thud break him out of it. He cracks open an eye.

Harry’s chair is empty and the sound of someone getting the shit beat right out of him is sort of crunchy somewhere behind Eggsy. One of the bad guys is on the floor with less head than Eggsy remembers him having a few seconds ago. Roxy’s standing in the doorway, idly twirling her umbrella. “You’re welcome,” she says. She must’ve fought her way through the bunker but not a hair’s out of place.

“You’re the guv, Lancelot,” Eggsy tells her, grinning. “You wanna untie me?”

“Not particularly,” she says. She looks pleased when Eggsy swears at her, and arches a perfect eyebrow. “You could have ruined this entire operation.”

Eggsy grumbles, loudly, and works his way loose of the zip tie round his wrists just as Harry finishes up. Harry is wiping his hands on a conveniently red handkerchief and his bare feet are still bleeding on the floor. Eggsy gets to his own, wincing, as Harry tells Roxy she’s done well and sends her off again. Once she’s gone, Harry takes Eggsy’s face in his hands. Eggsy says, “How much of that was planned?”

Harry’s thumb glides gently over his bottom lip. “Almost all of it. You weren’t supposed to be caught.”

“Bastard,” says Eggsy.

“You closed your eyes,” Harry says disapprovingly. Eggsy seizes him by his torn shirt and smashes their bleeding mouths together. Harry tugs him in closer, wraps an arm around him, tangles long fingers in his hair and licks into Eggsy’s mouth so fucking hot Eggsy feels like he’s on fucking fire. He lets out a slutty moan and breaks the kiss. “Fucking bastard.”

“Disobeying a direct order, Galahad,” Harry says. “There will have to be disciplinary action taken. Two weeks’ suspension, at least.”

Eggsy wrinkles his nose. “The fuck am I gonna do with two weeks?”

“Oh, dear boy, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” Harry’s smile is incongruously pleasant. The hand he slips into Eggsy’s trousers is completely in character. “Now, Galahad, what do you say to a second chance?”

“At what?” Eggsy slurs.

Harry touches a kiss to the corner of Eggsy’s mouth, and then sinks gracefully to his knees. Eggsy makes a sound in his throat, his cock twitching in his pants even as Harry peels them down off his hips. Harry’s smirk is fucking filthy. He says, “Don’t look away.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: ataraxetta


End file.
